This invention relates to a medication cart.
A medication cart is normally used with a system for administering medication to patients in a general or acute hospital or long term care facility. The cart has casters, permitting it to be pushed by a nurse from room to room. The cart has many drawers, most being dedicated to a patient and carrying a label with a patient's name. The drawers contain medicine and instructions for the administration of the medicines.
The nurse pushes the cart from room to room and, at each stop, gives the patient the required doses of medication. The cart is locked mechanically or electrically when it is unattended. The top-of-the-line cart in use at the present time requires a great many fabrication steps during which considerable care must be exercised to be sure that, among other things, guide rails are precisely aligned so that drawers will slide without binding. The cart has a castered base and a stainless steel cart frame mounted on the base. The vacuum-molded guide rail sheets are assembled in the stainless steel structure. The stainless steel is heavy and hence the cart, overall, is heavy. In transit the cart may be subjected to stress which tends to rack the cart, thus misaligning the drawers and locking system. When that occurs, the cart may have to be returned to the manufacturer in order to square up the cart.
When the raw stainless steel frames are received, they must go through lengthy quality control processes including numerous finishing processes and measurement processes.
The bottom plate installation is a time-consuming process requiring multiple holes to be drilled and riveted. The cart has locking doors that retain the drawers in a closed condition and the installation of lock sleeves and other parts relating to the operation of the locks is a time-consuming process. When the doors are unlocked, they have to be manually opened to gain access to the drawers.
The current method of vacuum-forming the guide rail sheets lends itself to inconsistencies in production making it difficult to hold tight tolerances for good quality control The fabrication of the vacuum-formed ribbed sheets requires trimming the parts and attaching them to extrusions or rails, and that process requires a significant amount of time. After fabrication, the guide rails must be installed in the cart. Vertical and horizontal alignment of these guide rails is essential to the cart's functioning properly. The process requires skilled labor and considerable time, even with experienced labor. The foregoing are but a few of the problems attending the fabrication of a very good cart design.